Feet Don't Fail Me Now
by Of Monsters and Me
Summary: An aside from my multi-chapter project: Astronautical. Set between Chapters 11 and 13. After departing from the Eclector and leaving the Ravagers behind, Nebula sets out to find a new way to dethrone her father, but it's hard to shake the events of the past week and she finds that going back to the same person she was might not be as easy as before.
1. Nothing Left Here to Say

**Set between Chapters 11 and 13. This story will focus on what Nebula did after leaving the Eclector and before rescuing Peter, Drax, and Groot from the Oasis.**

 **My goal is to aim for a sort of 'Zuko Alone' type of vibe, in that we get to see some internal conflicts and growth without any of the regular supporting cast or influences. It's kind of taken a life of its own, so I decided to go ahead and post it as a multi-chapter fic so I can take breaks and still work on the main fic's regular updates, but it's probably only going to be 3 or 4 chapters, and I'm trying not to dwell too much on it, so the editing is pretty quick and dirty here.**

 **Song is 'Feet Don't Fail Me Now' by the Foxes. I love this song, and felt it matched Nebula since long before I started the Astronautical project, so I'm happy to give her her own aside story under it.**

 _I do not own Marvel or GotG characters, this is purely a fanwork made for entertainment._

 _._

 **Chapter 1:**

 **Nothing Left Here to Say**

Nebula huffed out a breath at the approaching planet. The window fogged under her breath where she was leaning against it, arms crossed tightly, and the side of her forehead pressed against the cool glass.

"We'll be enterin' the atmosphere soon." The first mate's voice rang out from where he was addressing the crew in the cargo hold. "Now the air here's breathable, but it's a touch acidic, so keep your indicators close."

The mildly corrosive atmosphere would be no problem for her enhanced body, and she had no need to sit in on their safety meeting of sorts, so she was manning the guidance system, or more accurately, watching the planet slowly grow larger as the autopilot guided them in. It was a meager little planet, which had been overpopulated and over-industrialized for so long that from up here its features were all lost to the heavy blanket of smog that clung to it like a second skin that couldn't shed and was rotting from underneath. It was the kind of place where anyone could vanish with ease, and the real trick was not reappearing some cycles later, rotting in a ditch or pile of trash.

Gamora would no doubt be furious when she realized that she had lost the Infinity Stone, and Nebula intended to be long since vanished by the time her sister or anyone else came sniffing around.

The descent was quick and relatively painless as the atmospheric pressure here was only a small cry from that on the Ravager's main ship, so the pain in her joints as the air pressure shifted was minuscule and easily ignored. The dark discomfort writhing underneath her ribcage was harder to shake off.

By the time the ship pulled into an empty lot and the engines cut she was in a particularly foul mood, and the burning pain in her side as her nanobots worked furiously to repair the damage and regrow the nerves that the idiot's blaster had fried, was doing nothing to help. She had been stupid. She had let her sister get under her skin and had let her guard down. Worst of all, she hadn't expected the idiot to turn his weapon on her, and that had ultimately been her downfall. It was the oldest lesson Thanos had taught her, and one life seemed to enjoy repeating whenever the opportunity presented its self; Trust no one.

She had broken that rule, and this was a fitting punishment. An invisible shudder ran over her body as the next row of nerves were brought online, like thousands of red hot needles threading through her skin. Actually, it was practically getting away scott free by Thanos's standards.

"You ready to start unloadin' this junk?" A voice dragged her back into the present, back into her burning body and roiling mind that she wanted nothing to do with right now, and she resisted the urge to lash out at its source. She was not some mindless wounded animal who needed to curl up and lick her wounds in a dark, filthy cave. She was a daughter of Thanos, a galaxy class assassin, and she still had a job to do. She could not rest until her task was accomplished, and the first step to accomplishing that task was to finish transacting these wares and the items she'd stolen from half-world and to vanish as soon as she'd collected her portion.

Some distant, bitter voice, which sounded a bit like Korath if she thought too hard, insisted that she shouldn't have a portion. She should take all of the profits, it was the more honorable thing to do here as a child of Thanos. While she held no doubt in her mind that she could dispose of this motley band of ravagers with ease, it would be counterproductive. She needed to slip away quietly.

It was not because of any hesitancy to kill the people who took her in. She would never hesitate to kill them if she needed to, she assured herself of this as she steps onto the planet, a small, but heavy crate balanced in her arms, held awkwardly away from her side as she follows the ravagers to their meet-point. She just has a bigger goal and doesn't need any distractions. This was easier.

The voice that sounds like Korath stayed silent, but she could feel its eyes boring into her, and it maked her skin crawl. She needed to leave.

The second mate was mercifully swift in his business transactions, and soon Nebula was pocketing her units and leaving them in the dust and smog. A voice that sounded like it belonged to the first mate -Kraglin- called out a farewell, and she pretended not to hear it. This had all been a mistake, and it was long past time to move on.

-x-

The planet's name was Kezzmet. She doesn't care, but her enhanced brain supplies the information, regardless. She's never been here before, but she's studied maps of this quadrant, this and thousands of others, and she knows the population size, the main exports, a rough layout of the cities, although her information was likely outdated at this point.

The dried up husk of a planet boasted a large number of shipping ports and heavy traffic. Yudi-7 was a particularly shady and particularly infamous port here. Nebula could certainly understand the urge to leave this place as she paced around the edges of one of the larger ports, looking for a suitable ride off of this planet.

A pair of half-breeds had been shadowing her for some time now, she'd picked them up at the last port and they'd follower her all the way here, but they hadn't made any moves yet, so Nebula ignored them for now. Likely they would grow bored and go find an easier target soon enough.

A docket was posted up with this cycle's schedule of incoming and outgoing ships and where they were heading. Much like the last port, none of the destinations immediately stuck out as a good next stop. There were several here that weren't terrible, at least, and she filed those away in her mind along with the departure time and ship's names, in case nothing better should appear.

Her shadows followed her all the way across the sizable dockyard and by the time she left the crowded port and stepped into the greasy city they were still in tow. This was growing old.

The assassin slipped into a heavily crowded street, following along with the flow a ways before ducking down a series of dark alleys that let out onto another well-populated route. Neon lights and scrolling electronic signs provided the bulk of the light here. The planet's sun was next to useless through the heavy smog, and puffs of steam distorted what little light there was, giving the city the effect of a never ending night in the most seedy of districts.

Nebula repeated her trick several times before taking a wrong turn and finding the alleyway in front of her blocked off by a twisted iron fence. The word for 'caution' printed and scrawled in several dozen languages across the bars and onto the nearby walls. Frustrated by the roadblock, she took in a deep breath and blew it out her nose.

The sound of footsteps echoing off brickwork drew closer as her shadows grew bold and joined her in the empty alley, covering the exit.

"Well lookit that!" A high pitched and scratchy voice giggled out from behind. "Trapped like a rat."

"Yeah." Answered a second voice, just an octave lower. "Or more like a dog, wouldn't you say?"

Nebula finally turned to regard them and peeled the corner of her lip back in disgust at what she saw up close. Peter would have called them children, although by their age Nebula was already a full-fledged assassin with over a hundred targets successfully eliminated, not counting collateral damage or the lives she'd taken in her training.

The raggedy pair of street urchins before her didn't look like they had ever even wet their blades.

"Leave." She warned them. "You have no idea who you're messing with."

 _You mustn't leave loose ends,_ a voice that sounded like hollow, shining eyes, and the darkest parts of her childhood reminds her. _They're good for nothing but making nooses to hang yourself with later._

"I think we do." The first voice belonged to the slightly taller, slightly thinner of the two, his motley grey and purple scales shimmered like oil under the distorted light as he straightened himself to his full, and not very impressive, height.

"You're a dog of Thanos!" Jeered the second one. He was just a touch thicker than his companion, and about a growth spurt behind in height. They might be siblings, judging by their matching scales and yellow eyes.

"Yeah." The first one took another step forward, a laughably small knife brandished in one hand. "And the bounty on your head is enough to get us off this flarking planet!"

It was enough to buy them a brand new ship and their own d'asted planet to park it on, but she didn't bother telling them that.

"Leave," She repeated, still watching them from over her shoulder, "while you still can."

"You're in no position to be making demands!" A long reptilian tale whipped back and forth as the first one balanced on the balls of his feet. His form was sloppy and his weight was completely off-balance.

In a rookie move, he rushed straight at her, alone, leaving his partner to scramble after him.

Nebula finally turned to face them, reaching up to grab her batons as the half-breed siblings closeed the distance between them. The first one met her with a slash of the blade. It was a vicious swing, but he was overzealous, and timed it much too early. Nebula sidestepped it with ease and brought the butt of her baton down on the base of his skull as he stumbled past. The half-breed crumpled like a rag-doll and the second one let out a screech of rage as he reached her. This one is much more cautious, but Nebula caught his leg with her own and used his momentum to flip him over, his skull hit the pavement with a bang, and she pinned him down with the electric end of her batons until he stopped screaming and went limp as well.

The batons disengaged with a click and were returned to their holsters. She pulled the remaining half of her dual knife set from where it had been attached at her hip.

 _Loose ends make nooses_ , the cold voice sang in the back of her mind. If they wake, they will be witnesses. Gamora will find them, or perhaps even Korath. She could slit their throats now, and they would bleed out without ever waking. They would not suffer.

She stood over them for a long while in the dark alleyway, watching their chests rise and fall.

She thought to herself, in a voice laced with Gamora's cold and unwavering certainty, that this was necessary, and, in its own way a mercy. Better to die now, than wait for what the other assassins would do once they found them. They had all been trained to cover their tracks.

There was a tug at the corner of her lip at that, because at the end of it they really were all just trained dogs. She was nothing but a particularly mean-spirited stray that Thanos had found and whipped and beat into submission. Only now, she had bit the hand that fed her.

She had slipped her chains only to find the outside world just as cruel and unwelcoming as anything else she had ever known. The wickedness inside her would never leave. Her training, half programming at this stage, really, was all she had left. The last pieces of rubble from the shipwreck of her life, and she clung to it like a drowning person.

The knife in her hand weighed nothing as she stepped over the shorter of the half-breeds and bent down to grab him by the collar, steadying his body as she raised her blade to the corner of his neck, and hesitated, because there was a new voice these days. One that had weaseled its way into her mind without her even realizing, and sprouted like a weed. It was tiny, and quiet, but where her other thoughts came to her, slipping from the deepest dredges of her mind, cold to the touch and always in shades of blue and black, like the hallways of her childhood, this one was red, and gold, and warm, and so obnoxiously annoying that the other thoughts seemed to flee its presence, leaving her empty and lost.

 _They're just kids,_ This thought is quiet and shuddering. She half-expects Thanos to materialize out of the greasy, damp shadows to punish her for it then and there. She can practically feel the weight of his hand across her shoulders, his thumb against the back of her neck. The knife presses a little harder against the scales that line the half-breed's neck.

They're harmless. What could they do? They don't even know where she's going.

No one is harmless. Kindness has never done anything for her but blow up in her face and rip her body and her mind apart. Her hip burns with a renewed fire, and some well-trained part of her writhes and squirms like a trapped animal. _This could kill her_.

She could kill them first.

She could survive. That's the only thing she's good at. Surviving.

 _They're just kids._ So what? She was just a kid once, and nobody had cared then.

The knife loosened just a bit in her grip. Because she had never been 'just a kid.' Her earliest memories are of Thanos and the darkness. Of struggling to survive, pitted against her other siblings for everything. There is nothing before that. There is no one before that.

The knife pulled away, and it might have trembled if not for her enhancements which typically prevented such things, barring traumatic damage to their circuits. To her circuits.

She stood, hesitated for a moment, then turned and left the alley with long strides and didn't look back.

Out in the city she stalked, stiff-legged, towards the next dock and tried to ignore the hammering of her heart. Citizens seemed to sense the danger and parted around her like fish. The impossibly large hand on her shoulders was heavy, and tightened around her throat a little more with each step she took away from the witnesses she let live.

 **End**

-x-

 **Hopefully I did her character some justice so far. I'm 70+k words into the other fic, but it's all been from Peter's mind. This is my first try at writing from someone else's perspective, minus the tiny prologues on a couple chapters. I hope I managed to give her her own voice without it becoming too much. We kind of start with her in a terrible place so we're basically just thrown off the deep end of her emotional spectrum. Hopefully I can keep working on it and find her voice by the end of this short project. A lot of it still feels pretty rough to me, but I can't spend all my time on this if I still want to keep up with my regular updates, so it'll do for now. I might go back and tweak it more later.**


	2. Second Chances Don't Come Easy

**I told myself this would be a shorter chapter. I did not follow through with that. I'll try to reign it back in for the next one. I'm trying to play around with shorter chapters with this aside.**

 **I went back and made some edits to the last chapter. Nothing story-related, I just fixed some tense issues.**

 **[Pope if you see this, I left an answer at the bottom of the Chapter!]**

 **.**

 **Chapter 2:**

 **Second Chances Don't Come Easy**

There was a ship on the next dock that departed that evening to an acceptable outpost in the Pakk Galaxy and she took it. It was an ugly little barge, maybe half the size of the Eclector, and about as well-kept. The security was exactly what Nebula would expect from a ship willing to accept boarders from this location, and with her ravager's red uniform and a dark shawl sort of wrap she'd swiped from a vendor, to cover most of her face, her mechanical arm, and her batons, she paid the unremarkable fee and shuffled up the ramp with the other boarders, unchallenged.

Evening on this planet was entirely unremarkable. Due to the heavy smog obscuring the sky, it presented as hardly more than a subtle shift in the lighting. Nebula was watching out one of the windows, sitting on top of a crate with her knees drawn up, as she waited impatiently for the ship to finish its inspections and depart. She didn't particularly care for the view, but it was a convenient escape from the other passengers on the ship, and watching the people mill about below distracted her from the sense of foreboding that hasd't left her since letting those siblings live.

In the ugly half-light, a suspiciously Kree-looking ship swooped down to dock not so far from her vessel. Nebula narrowed her eyes and sat up a little straighter. She didn't believe in coincidences. This was likely a scouting ship that was sent out when Gamora learned of her escape.

A tiny knot of guilt formed in her gut as she realized that this meant Gamora had made her move. Peter and Drax, and that tree prisoner from Half-world, were likely well on their way to Thanos by now, and some stupid childish part of her that she has spent the better part of her life trying and failing to completely kill, hoped that the ravagers had been spared. She stomped that hope down with a viciousness. There was nothing she could do for any of them, anyways. There might have been once, but Peter made his choice. And so did she.

As she suspected, the crew of the ship proved to be dressed in armor from Thanos's Kree army. Three guards marched down the loading ramp and several passing civilians immediately retreat to a safer distance. They make their way to the main building, which housed all the charts and schedules and Nebula willed the little bard to depart faster.

The presence of armed guards from the warlord's own army sent a ripple of unease through the docks as they passed, and Nebula could see several individuals hastily make their way to their own ships.

The pilots of the bard must have noticed the disturbance as well, because she could feel the engines suddenly hum with more vigor. They must have been speeding up the departure process.

All three guards stop at the main building and one leaned in towards the window with an attendant. The staff here must not have been feeling very helpful. They typically weren't, in out-lying black market planets like this. As Nebula watched silently, the guards appeared to grow increasingly frustrated until one finally snapped and reached through the window to grab at someone inside.

The growing disquiet erupted into full-fledged chaos as some civilians fled in terror while others rushed in to attack the guard who wass trying to drag the flailing teller through a too-small gap in the window. There was a tug at the corner of her lips as she watched the guards get overwhelmed by furious patrons and staff. A couple of overzealous crowd members even grabbed some loose pipes from a pile of construction material nearby.

By the time the guards managed to collect themselves and start firing on the crowd, the ship underneath her gave a great lurch and began to fire up its engines to full throttle. She could see one guard point a finger frantically at the departing barge, but there was nothing they could do as it pulled away. A triumphant grin split across her face as the ship pulled into the murky atmosphere and she watched them fade in the distance and smog.

-x-

Despite the clean and easy getaway, Nebula remained on guard for the duration of the trip. Thanos's army was definitely on the hunt for her and the stolen Infinity Stone now. It took nearly two standard cycles, and she alternated between eavesdropping on the other passengers and half-dozing in remote and hidden areas of the ship. She kept the shawl pulled over her head and the satchel with the Infinity stone held close. It wasn't so much that she was afraid any one of the other passengers might do anything, as, the less details they remembered about her, the better.

Being completely unremarkable was one of the best skills an assassin could posses, and it was one that Nebula had near perfected over time and out of necessity. It was one of the very few skills which she could boast over even her sister. Gamora, with her red tipped hair and being the last of her people -barring her parents which may or may not be alive, but may as well be long dead for all the likelyhood that Thanos would ever let them see the light of day again- had never had subtlety as her strongest weapon. But, when you are the most feared woman in all the known universe, some people do tend to simply _choose_ not to remember your passage.

Luphomoids were rare, but hardly unheard of, and had a close enough appearance to a number of other races that, as long as she could obscure her mechanical arm and eye, no one would remember enough details to so much as point Thanos's men in the right direction.

And so, the journey was largely uneventful. She was leaning against a crate labeled 'Fragile' in at least ten different languages, and taking slow bites from a Hopchi Fruit she stole from the kitchens when they sent out the announcements that they'd be docking soon. They probably would have just given the fruit to her. She'd seen several passengers receive meals and snacks from the barge workers, but she wanted to remain unnoticed. And she really didn't want to talk to any of the very chatty staff. She could hear them babbling on and laughing at all hours.

She finished the fruit and gave a languid stretch, satisfied when her shoulders and spine popped. She'd grown pretty good at judging when best to pop them during entrances and exits from atmospheres to avoid the worst of the building pressure within them, and it was always a treat when no one was around and she could allow herself that little indulgence.

With the wrap arranged carefully over her left side and held close, she stepped into the stream of passengers gathering at the ramp. A frown pulled at her face when the ramp wasn't lowered. They were probably facing processing delays with their cargo, or the port was just busy and backed up. Still, the bodies around her were uncomfortably close, and warm, and moist, and she struggled not to lash out as she danced out of the way of people with no sense of personal space. Or hygiene. Annoyance started to morph into trepidation as more time passed, and the bay had still not been opened. The people around her were starting to notice and some had begun to stir with a new sense of urgency. She wanted to yell at them to stop panicking and to shut up. But she bit her tongue and waited.

When the bay door did open, it was with a sudden blaring horn that made most of the passengers jump, and a child squealed and grabbed at her hand which she yanked away as though she'd been burned.

"Sorry. Sorry!" Someone called out as they snatch the child back and scolded them with hushed words.

Nebula ignored the apology, but didn't put her hand back down as she caught sight of the loading dock and the trepidation rolled its way on to dread. There were more soldiers here. A whole line of them, waiting like sentries at the sides of the ramp. They were dressed in dark armor that is unmistakably Thanos's. From Korath's faction, it seemed. This was surprising, as she was pretty sure she was in Ronan's space right now, so where were his soldiers? Even if they had known where she was, there would be no sense in dispatching Korath's foot soldiers into Ronan's territory when his men should already be here, and had much more experience.

She didn't have too much time to ponder this, as one of the barge's staff who appeared to have been discussing something with one of the soldiers jogged up the ramp to address the passengers.

"I know this seems a bit unorthodox, so bear with me folks. You're not in any trouble here, and we'll get you all on your way as quickly as we can, so remain calm and this'll be over in no time at all."

His words seemed to pacify the crowd and they grew still.

"These people are looking for someone dangerous, and we're going to have to ask you all to line up and file out so they can let you through. Please, if you have any papers or documentation have it ready and the whole thing'll go a lot smoother."

The crowd jostled its way into some semblance of a line, though it was more like a slightly more rectangular crowd, and Nebula kept towards the back, eyeing the soldiers and working furiously to figure out an escape route. Korath's troops were largely younger and untried soldiers. Thanos had granted him his position as commander after he had bested her in a hunt for the map to the infinity stone, and the mage who held it. She would have won, had Gamora not shattered the ice field they were battling on. Gamora was already set to begin her work with the Black Order. She hadn't even had any business in that battle, and she had taken away Nebula's victory, regardless. Korath had gained his army and she was sent to... oversee Ronan. Which was Thanos's way of making her little more than a glorified assistant.

These were clearly very fresh soldiers. They carried themselves awkwardly and the one on the far right shifted like he was unaccustomed to the heavy weight. She might have a pretty good chance if it came down to direct combat, but that was assuming there wasn't reinforcements nearby, and that they were only carrying standard weapons.

If they started firing in such a crowded place, however, it would practically guarantee a high civilian casualty count, and Thanos would definitely know where she was.

The civilians were making their way down the ramp and the soldiers were peering at faces and checking papers as they let them through. Nebula bit her bottom lip until it ached and tugged the shawl lower as she briefly considered slipping back into the ship. But this one was set to return directly to Yudi-7, and Korath's soldiers would probably be waiting there, just the same. She needed to get into this port and onto the next location as quickly as possible if she was going to escape her father.

She drew nearer to the soldiers as the crowd filtered its way out onto the docks and she was no closer to a decision that didn't leave the dock floors covered in corpses and half of Thanos's army hot on her tail.

More passengers slipped away and soon, only a few groups were left between herself and the checkpoint. Behind her, the mother was whispering something softly to her child, and the child giggled quietly in reply, oblivious to the danger they were in.

 _Casualties happen._ Another one of her unquestionable truths that had been rattled loose as of late. She had held back for the sake of keeping the peace with that idiot. And what a fruitless endeavor that had proven to be. A waste of time and energy that may have cost her everything. Those two half-breeds she'd let live had probably been found by now. They'd probably confirmed her presence there and been dispatched of. They were probably the reason she was trapped here like an Orlani now.

It was almost her turn. There was still a small crowd behind her, but it would be more suspicious to be the last. A family group in front of her stepped forward towards the right, where the shuffling guard was stationed and she swept in behind them, hovering close and keeping her face turned down. More passengers pressed behind her, and she did her best to become invisible, and to prepare for what was coming.

"Ma'am." A voice called, distorted by his mask, but definitely young. She could kill him with ease. He'd be dead before he hit the ground. It was his companions, spread far apart, with range weapons at the ready, that were the bigger concern. She could probably use the panicking crowd as cover and be out of range in 15 seconds. How many people could they kill in fifteen seconds? Her brain immediately started doing the math and she gave a mental shake.

"Ma'am." The voice repeated, and the young soldier stepped forward to gesture at her with his blaster. Now was the time. The second he saw her, he'd signal for help, and her element of surprise would be lost. "You're going to have to remove the cover, ma'am."

If Thanos caught her, he would retrieve the Infinity stone as well. It was simple math, to know that the billions of lives saved by not being caught here far outweighed the dozens that it would cost to escape. Her right hand tightened around the band of the satchel, and her mechanical one inched under the shawl towards her blade.

"Ma'am." The young soldier was beginning to grow exasperated. His closest companions were beginning to notice the upset. She was out of time. "You're going to have to-"

"She's with us." A hand came down on her shoulder, and she froze underneath it. For a brief, terrible, senseless moment, she was sure it was Thanos's hand, here to punish her for everything she had done. But as the flash of panic passed, she realized this hand was much too small, and she knew that voice. Although, the source may have been about as likely as Thanos himself.

"This is our sister." Came a second voice from her other side, as the younger of the half-breed siblings sidled up next to her.

The guard looked flustered for a second, but managed to pull himself together.

"Well, I'm still going to need her to remove that scarf." He stated with wavering authority, reaching to grap the edge of her shawl. "I need to check everyone that comes through."

"Please," The older sibling reached over to grab the shawl before he could reveal her face and tugged it even lower across her face. "She's suffered some terrible injuries in an accident. She lost her tail, and can't stand people to see what's become of 'er face."

"That's not my-"

"Look, these are our papers, okay?" He cut the guard off again. Nebula couldn't see much beyond everyone's boots, but she listened intently to the crinkling of papers as the guard inspected them. He fell silent for a few moments and Nebula remained perfectly still. There was still a hand pressing down on her shoulder, and the chance she might make it out of here unseen.

She had no clue what the half-breeds were doing on the ship, or what they were planning here. Probably hoping to ambush her once they were out of sight and collect the reward for turning her in themselves. She could ditch them easily as soon as she was past the checkpoint, so she would play along for now.

"So can we go?" The one with his hand still on her shoulder asked.

"I really need to-"

"I get it, Okay." The soldier was getting nervous under the constant interruptions. "You have to do your job, and no one here is stopping you. Those are our papers, and you can clearly see my poor sister here is no danger to anyone. Now do you really want to make us pull her scarf off out here in the middle of a crowd? Hasn't she suffered enough?"

"Well-"

"And what about the kids? There are children here. What if someone sees her and screams and everyone starts panicking? This dangerous person could slip right through in the chaos and you'd have a riot on your hands. Is that really what you want here?"

"No, I-"

"Then just let us through, and we'll be out of your way. I don't want to hold up your line, and I'd hate for my sister to start crying here." The hand on her shoulder shook her very slightly and she curled her shoulders and hunched over a bit more, as though she was about to start crying.

"No, don't-" The young soldier said hastily, shoving the papers back at the brothers and stepping away as though disgusted by the thought. "Just-just go. Move on."

"Thank you, sir." The hand on her shoulder gave a little push and Nebula let it guide her past the checkpoint and out into the dock. "We appreciate your conside-"

"Just. Go." The soldier snapped, turning resolutely back towards the remaining passengers to be checked.

When they were far enough away, Nebula halted and straightened up.

"Remove your hand." She snarled.

"Okay. Geeze." He yanked his hand away and took a couple steps back. Nebula tensed and prepared for the fight, but neither brother reached for any weapons.

"I told you she wouldn't thank us." Snorted the younger one, shuffling back nervously when she turned her glare on him.

"It doesn't matter, Nav." The older one sighed.

Nebula glanced between them, still not sure what their game was here.

"Why did you do it?" She finally questioned. She wanted to leave as quickly as possible, but if they were setting her up for a trap she needed to know now.

The siblings glanced at each other. The younger one, Nav, looked uncertain.

"You didn't kill us."

"What?" Nebula asked, screwing her face up in disbelief. This was some sorry excuse for a lie if they were trying to lull her into a false sense of security.

"Back in that Alley. You had the opportunity. Anyone else on that planet woulda done it." The older one spoke, and Nav ducked his head in embarrassment. "Look, Nav is- We're all each other's got left. Thanos burned our homeworld, and we lost everything in our escape. I thought for sure, I'd killed my little brother back in that alley when you knocked me out and I- I guess I owed you one. We're even now."

"Your sister's papers?" Nebula asked, trying to poke holes in this story.

"She died from her injuries shortly after."

"Is it true what those soldiers on Yudi were saying?" Nav broke in, changing the subject.

"What?"

"They had a holo-graph of your face." The older one explained. "We saw the rukus they were making and slipped onto the ship while everyone was distracted. Didn't realize you were on the same one at the time. They said you betrayed Thanos."

Nebula narrowed her eyes, but didn't add anything yet.

"They said you stole something from him. Something important." Nav added, staring at her a little more boldly now. "And he seems pretty pissed about it."

Nebula snorted. That was an understatement.

"I don't know who you are, or what your intentions were, but as far as I'm concerned, if Thanos wants you, then I sure as hell ain't gunna help him get you back."

"I'm going to kill him." She stated flatly. This was the first time she'd said it to anyone but her sister and those rabble Peter had called the Guardians. The effect was, strange, to say the least. Nav suddenly straightened up and gave her a weird excited look, and a small smile tugged at the corner of the older one's mouth.

"Well, then, blue girl." He said, sticking one hand out towards her. "I wish you the best of luck. I hope you rip that bastards head from his shoulders."

Nebula just stared at the hand blankly, still waiting for the other shoe to drop and this to all be some trick to make her an easier target. After a long, awkward pause, he sighed and retracted his hand.

"C'mon, Nav." He said, turning to place a hand gently on his brother's shoulder, who was still looking at her as though he was working up the courage to say something, and steering him away.

"Good luck." Nav called with one last look before they both vanished back into the docks.

Nebula stood rooted to the spot as she listened to the crowd murmur quietly around her. In the distance, she caught glimpses of the soldiers leaving the barge she had come in on and setting up another check point in front of the next incoming ship.

She was through. No one had died, and she hadn't been caught.

The warm, golden voice grew just a little bit bolder, and the shadows shrank just a little further back.

 **End**

 **[ Pope: They mention that they snuck on when the guards were causing that gigantic disturbance on the docks. "** _We saw the rukus they were making and slipped onto the ship while everyone was distracted._ " **]**

 **What made this update take so long was probably that it felt too coincidental to have the brothers be on the same ship. I debated several other ways to have it come full circle, but in the end I went with the fastest route, since this is just an aside and I told myself I wouldn't obsess over it. I was obsessing.**

 **Anyways, I really liked the idea of Nebula doing something good and actually being rewarded for it. It's such a foreign concept to her, she literally doesn't believe it at first. It's the next step of her realizing that she can be good, or at the least, do good things. She still has a long way to go, but this little event is enough to shake up her already scrambled world again.**

 **I wrote most of this in one night to avoid working on the main fic. This next chapter is already the most edited one. I have five different versions saved, and I'm only three short scenes in. And I'm debating cutting out the first one entirely. My characters run away from me a lot, and my drug-addled brain decided to mess up the timing on something and now I have to make sure the first scene in this next one won't cost me some emotional impact in a later chapter. It's a tiny thing, and in all honesty, probably not worth the extra thought I'm giving it, but it bothers me. I'm weak. And it doesn't help that I actually don't remember much of the last chapter, and since the muscle relaxants take forever to leave my system, I can't focus on my old writing long enough to read more than a few sentences at a time, so I keep having to stop what I'm doing to scroll up to the last chapter and check things, like did I already say that? or where was this character, again? What tone did I leave the chapter on? Did they say when they were going to call? Hopefully, I'll still have an update for you all on time this week.**


End file.
